John Cutler

If just is context-free, then but is context-heavy. If just is biased toward action and simplification, then but is biased toward questioning and exploration. Just and but are polarities: you need both. Just has answers. But has questions.

...Justers and butters save lives in different ways: one by acting fast, and the other by preventing the adverse drug interaction. Put justers and butters together—provided they trust each other—and you're in good shape. Without trust, a juster and butter will just butt heads incessantly.

In 2024, I must admit I am having a bit of a personal crisis regarding continuous improvement. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about "high performing" companies and teams, or companies seeking to transform how they work—there is very little talk of continuous improvement.

The language around layoffs in tech is rife with talk of operational efficiency gains, achieving profitability targets, rightsizing, and high-interest rates. There is very little sense that employees were allowed to be part of the solution or path forward (e.g., by recommending areas of cost savings, quality circles, taking pay cuts, etc., similar to Harley-Davidson in the early 1980s, Southwest Airlines in 2001 or 2008, or countless companies mid-pandemic).

...Meanwhile, among companies less impacted by the ups and downs (real or imagined) in tech and deep in their respective transformations, we see the same old copy-paste approaches, outdated practices, and "changing but not really changing." On some fundamental level, when it comes to continuous improvement, there is no real difference between the two: in both cases, you have change imposed on teams and a lack of engagement to co-design the way forward. In both cases, existing power structures remain entrenched.

The biggest source of waste is not low performers or having too many employees.

The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists.

...Skilled pragmatists are too smart to wade into conflicts or political maneuvering. They work within the system. They are under-challenged and bored at work but are resourceful enough to scratch those itches in other ways. They aren't lazy—doing the bare minimum and stopping—but they also don't go "above and beyond" because they are inherently skeptical that it is worth it. They are very reliable, but to the point where they are conveniently (to them) invisible. Occasionally, they show flashes of brilliance to remind people they've got the chops, but not so often that it throws them into the lion's den.

I wrote this after having a number of people ask me about Shape Up. It is in bullet and notes form. Basecamp is doing something right, because this has come up in conversation multiple times.

My key argument is that you cannot make predictable delivery the goal. You have to put value front and center and put sustainable and differentiated growth front and center. Predictable delivery needs to be in service to that, not the end goal. Because if you don’t, then one day you wake up and predictable delivery is impossible.

How can we make the case for slowing down to speed up when we are already going slow, and when shutting things down and starting over is not an option?

People are so inundated with information about 1% of the companies that they forget to ask how they might make incremental improvements vs. our nearest competitors. If you're working in a regulated environment and getting a customer in direct contact with a team is hard, there's a good chance it is ALSO hard for your competitors.

...Set aside time to figure out how your competitors are working (and what's working and not). What practices are "common" in your context, and where are there opportunities to set yourself apart? What specific capabilities must you evolve and strengthen as a company? Avoid handwavvy words like "Agile" or "Modern Product." Get specific. 

What is one area in which you can get incrementally better?

The tech info-sphere is currently awash in talk of real vs. fake, best vs. rest, do this vs. that, tech utopianism vs. AI hysteria, top-tier vs. mid-tier, use AI or be used, and founders vs. workers vs. managers vs. VPs. People are processing that the companies they joined are, well, companies with factions, investors, confirmation bias, and competing needs.

...It's all a self-reinforcing loop—a doom loop that's dividing people. We need to find ways to rekindle and amplify the excitement, fun, challenge, and joy—for our well-being and the well-being of others. We need to lift people without being so serious.

Whoever has the power and influence to create bastions of challenging fun where teams can experience how rewarding it can be to make stuff and have an impact together—I think that's what we need now. It is also what will jumpstart teams and kickstart hiring because teams having fun will be much more impactful, and real teams will be less divisive.

Productivity? Efficiency?

I’ll take “Having fun building stuff that has impact” any day.

Why do some companies seem capable of doing the work they need to do and keeping quality levels relatively high (not perfect, and not without ebbs and flows, but relatively high), while other companies believe that doing both is impossible and let things slip to the point where unwinding things is exceedingly difficult?

Same pressures. Different results.

1. Learned the hard way.
2. Long-view and patience.
3. Shared understanding.
4. Skills.
5. They make high quality "cheaper".
6. Leadership's core beliefs.